High & Wide — How it Looked in the Room | March 11 & 12, 2017

Apart from losing an hour for the requisite Daylight Saving Time thing we all enjoy so much, it was a good weekend for us. Again, these wide-shot videos are a great way for us to analyze how our creative, musical, and service decisions are playing in the room.

Examining this kind of thing can be a great way to see how transitions play out and how certain elements are perceived by an audience. For instance, sometimes only by looking at the service from this vantage point are we able to see how a video transition is really working, how slow a stage transition may feel in the room, or how a host moment may be connecting. Only watching the program feed may leave out some important elements.

Our service flow was fairly standard this weekend—no crazy production elements in the room or being sent to the campuses other than the live message. Even with this simplicity in the plan, after the Saturday night service we still discussed if song #3 needed to stay or be cut. Was it actually needed? Was it almost the exact same song and feel as song #2? There were several passionate viewpoints on either side of the discussion within our service lead team. Remember: what we don’t discuss, we let happen.

Instead of cutting a song mid-weekend (dominos can fall in unexpected ways when all campuses try to react to this last minute), we shortened the play-out of song #3 to get the live story segment on stage faster. We also cut the musical intro to song #4 so it was a much faster transition from the end of the story segment to the beginning of the next song lyric. Again, transitions can make or break moments such as these.

Even after many years of paying attention to these kinds of details, we still spend much of our rehearsal time working on transitions. The feel in the room matters. The comfort of an audience matters. Proper use of a wide-shot as an evaluation tool may help you make some effective improvements in your own presentation. Enjoy seeing a part of our process.

Andrew Stone is the Production Manager and Audio Director at Church on the Move in Tulsa, OK. His 27 years of touring experience have brought a unique, and sometimes unorthodox, perspective to his approach towards production in the church. He has been a key part of changing the culture behind COTM's live events and he loves sharing his knowledge with other churches. He's been married for 20 years, rarely wears anything but black, and genuinely loves to rock. You can find him on Twitter (@stone_rocks), Instagram (stone.rocks), and is a blog contributor on Seeds, COTM's free resource site.